UNEMPLOYMENT AND YOUR PERSONALITY

February 19, 2015
Elijah Ogidi-Olu
0 Comments

Research led by the University of Stirling, studied job data from
Germany:They found that unemployment changes people’s core personalities. Men
became less pleasant and conscientious after two years without work while Women were more conscientious in early and late stages of joblessness.

Researchers believe undesirable character changes damages
unemployed people's prospects of findings a new role in the workplace.

People who
can't find a job often say that the experience has knocked their confidence.

Now, a new
study claims that unemployment changes a person's core personality traits,
making them less conscientious and unfriendly.

Researchers
say such personality changes start a vicious circle, making it harder for
unemployed people to find new jobs, and there should be more support for those
out of work to prevent such changes.

‘The results
challenge the idea that our personalities are “fixed” and show that the effects
of external factors such as unemployment can have large impacts on our basic
personality,’ said Dr Christopher Boyce, of the University of Stirling,
Scotland.

The study
found that men were more agreeable during the first two years of unemployment,
compared to those in work, but after two years, jobless men were more
unpleasant than those with jobs.

But for
women, agreeableness declined with each year of unemployment.

‘In early
unemployment stages, there may be incentives for individuals to behave
agreeably in an effort to secure another job or placate those around them,’ the
researchers wrote in the study published in APA’s Journal of Applied
Psychology.

‘But in
later years when the situation becomes endemic, such incentives may weaken.’

The study
revealed that the longer men were out of work, the less conscientious they
became.

In contrast,
women became more conscientious in the early and late stages of unemployment
but experienced a slump in the middle of the study.

The experts
theorised this may because females regained some industriousness by caring for
others.

In a similar
pattern, unemployed men remained open on their first year without work, but
became more secretive and detached the longer they were unemployed.

And women
became less open in the second and third years of unemployment, but rebounded
in the fourth.

Dr Boyce
said that unemployed people may be unfairly stigmatised as a result of
unavoidable personality change and a lack of enthusiastic workers could
potentially create a downward cycle of difficulty in the job market.

‘Public
policy has a key role to play in preventing adverse personality change in
society through both lower unemployment rates and offering greater support for
the unemployed,’ he said.

‘Policies to
reduce unemployment are therefore vital not only to protect the economy but
also to enable positive personality growth in individuals.’

Hello. I'm Ogidi-Olu Elijah. A Creative Content Developer, Freelance writer and Blogger. I also help people manage their blogs via content management. Thanks for checking me out on MMT. Where, we talk with no holds barred. Got something for me? Kindly send me a mail. It's good to have you here. Let's have some fun!

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